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Day 1: 10 Day Challenge – Boost your Resourcefulness

What does it mean to be more resourceful? How would it feel to have new options in life that give you energy and clear the brain fog?

How would it be if you felt more gratitude? How would life be if your first emotion was excitement, not anxiety? What would be different if you felt joy at the smallest thing?

Some people are blessed because these skills come easily. However, most people are more prone to anger, fear, disappointment and despondency and this is fed by the media on a daily basis.

What if I told you that it doesn’t have to be that way! We assume that we need positive events in our life to make us feel better. This is not true. It is possible to express more and more of the life affirming positive emotions just by practicing them, and this will lead to greater resourcefulness, increased energy and more choice

So over the next 10 days I challenge you to come with me a journey. It will only take 5-10 minutes of your time each day. And even if you are a busy Mum, with a full time job and kids to care for and it’s the summer break, I believe that everyone can find a few minutes for themselves.

The way it will be structured is each day there will be a short blog on the emotion I want you to learn to express more of. There will also be a short audio that will guide you through the process (and it will be written out for those of you who prefer to read things). You will be able to comment and ask questions on our facebook page: Naturally Empowered Wellness & Chiropractic. You can also opt to receive the link through Twitter: NEWellnessChiro.

This is not about affirmations and using the mind to focus, it’s about embodying new emotions and new energy sources. It’s about changing the way you perceive yourself and the world, and how you hold your body. It’s a journey, not a quick fix, but I know in 10 days if you do this, you will really feel the difference.

I’m going to start with gratitude because it’s such an important emotion and I have personally studied it over and over. What I have found it that saying “I’m grateful for……” for me at least doesn’t do much. What I want is for you to be able to have an embodied experience of gratitude and learn how to reproduce that over and over.

So what do I want you to do?

You can do this exercise sitting down, standing or walking. The choice is yours. I suggest you try all three and see what works best for you. You may want to do it in a quiet room or you may prefer to go out and walk.

I want you pay attention to your body in response to the following questions. Some are going to make a difference and some you’ll go “so what” to. This is about finding your magic recipe to embody more and more emotions, and emotions bring more energy and more energy will allow you to make different choices and take different actions.

Focus on something in your life you feel grateful for. This may be something that has already happened or something that is going to happen you already know about. Or just focus on feeling gratitude.

Observe what happens in your body when you do this.

Observe your breath pattern. Is it shallow, deep, fast or slow? Is it changing as you focus on gratitude?

Observe the energy in your body. Does it move up your body or down? Do you feel yourself contract or expand? Are you aware of energy at all? What changes as you focus on feeling grateful? Do you have more or less energy?

If you find your mind wandering, observe it, acknowledge it and come back to gratitude.

Do you need to move to feel gratitude in your body? How do you need to move? Move.

How does focusing on gratitude affect your posture? Does changing your posture increase or decrease your experience of gratitude? Do you have a “gratitude” posture?

When you focus on gratitude, do you feel like you expand or contract?

What do you become aware of?

Do you experience gratitude as something that comes from deep inside of you and expands out? Or is it something that you feel coming into your body (not from someone or something else, just coming in)?

Look for opportunities to feel grateful through the day. I suggest looking for small things because life is full of small things and if you need big things to feel grateful that will be much harder. Examples for me include: feeling the breeze on my face. Seeing the green of the trees. Feeling the rain on my face (easy at the moment). A smile from a stranger. A smile from someone I love. There are so many opportunities and you have a choice in every interaction you have all day as to how you receive it.

Many of us have a “big thing” that we can be grateful to and will never change. For me personally, when I was 21 I developed type 1 diabetes. Insulin was discovered in the late 1920’s and without that discovery I would have died 25 years ago. I am so grateful that I am still here and I’m alive and I can enjoy life. Just remembering that moment brings gratitude into my body every time.

Have a great day and please share your experiences and questions on our facebook page.